Journal 7

Word of the week: blithely. Webster's New College World defines it as showing a cheerful, carefree disposition; lighthearted, with an origin of ME < OE; ult. < IE base *bhlei-, to shine, gleam. Merriam-Webster says it has origins in Middle English, from Old English blīthe; akin to Old High German blīdi joyous.  The writer uses the word in a lede about the manner in which one receives a text message.  However, this one is not very blithely after all.  I have a friend named Blythe so the word caught my eye.

Catch of the week: miniscule. "It's miniscule and he will recover," Lewis said.
Per AP, the word is always used as minuscule, not miniscule.

Headline of the week: Gators fail to clinch SEC, lose to Wildcats. First of all, I understand what our online editor was thinking when he wrote this headline. But the fact that the Gators lost should be first, because they can't fail to clinch the SEC without losing.  I would simply rewrite this as, "Gators lose to Wildcats, fail to clinch SEC."

Passage of the week: From the Alligator's one and only, Bill O'Connor: 

Since Vietnam, I’ve had no qualms about using escort services. During the war, whores were $4 apiece. At 19, I got all I could while I could.

Blatant, unimaginative ads devoted to call girls plaster page after page of the phone book. Holy shit, is this Bangkok or the Bible Belt?

Astounded, I erupt, “Eugene, can you believe this shit? Look at all these whores.”

Cutlines

There is no where to upload the cutline .doc on Sakai, so I'm adding it here.

Boy Shield:
A Palestinian child, Muhammad Badwan, rides on the front of an Israeli police vehicle after authorities tied the boy to the windscreen on Friday, April 23, 2004, in Biddo, Israel. Police used Badwan, 13, as a human shield after they said they caught him hurling rocks at border police. “When I saw him on the hood of the jeep, my whole mind went crazy,” said Saeed Badwan, the boy’s father.

Hummer and Bus:

Authorities investigate the aftermath of a crash involving a 2006 Hummer and a school bus Saturday, Feb. 19, 2010, in Centre County. No students were seriously hurt in the afternoon crash at the intersection of Portry Avenue and 15th street that sent bus driver Pat Higgens and the driver of the Hummer to Centre City Medical Center. 

Journal 6

Word of the week: corpulent. Webster's New College World defines it as fat and fleshy; stout; obese. It says the origin is Middle English, corporality, from Latin corpulentia, corpulence, from corpulentus,corpulent, from corpus, body; see kwrep- in Indo-European roots. Merriam-Webster says the origin is Middle English, from Latin corpulentus, from corpus with a first known use in the 14th century. The writer uses the word to describe primates that are being fattened up for studies on obesity.

Catch of the week: "While some students choose are spending their Spring Break soaking in the debauchery of sun-kissed tourist destinations..."
This was clearly an error at the copy desk.  Someone must have changed the lede from "choose to spend" to "are spending" but forgot to remove the word choose. It reads rather funny and makes you do a double-take.

Headline of the week:
Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll and engineer Norman Augustine speak at UF
Another Alligator speech article with a boring headline.  Not only do most students not know who Carroll or Augustine are, they probably don't care.  I would have used the following headline, which would attract more eyes to the pieces.
Florida is falling behind in technological advancements, Lt. Gov says

Passage of the week:
I ask Boyer about the girl. Does he worry about her? I don't know how she feels, because I haven't been able to track her down. (The fact that I tried angers some colleagues, who tell me that I would be victimizing her all over again if I contacted her. The fact that I fail distresses others, who argue that a story containing even a measure of sympathy for Boyer, without his victim's perspective, is an outrage.)
It's from a story about the first American cyclist in the Tour de France and his life as a child molester. While the prose isn't that powerful, the ethical dilemma is and it sparked an inner debate for myself.

Journal 5

Word of the week: trochanter. "The scientists noticed that the fleas sometimes jumped with trochanters and tarsi both planted on the Styrofoam." Webster's New College World dictionary defines it as the second segment from the base of an insect leg. Origin: Gr trochantēr < trechein, to run. Merriam-Webster's says basically the same, Greek trochantēr; akin to Greek trechein to run with a first known use in 1615. The writer is using the word when discussing a disagreement between two scientists on which part of the leg fleas use to jump.

Catch of the week:
"Florida State (18-7, 8-3) committed eight turnovers in the opening eight minutes, and the Cavaliers led by four with just fewer than 10 minutes remaining in the first half despite the Seminoles' best player, forward Chris Singleton, having tallied 11 points."
It should be less than, because minutes refers to an amount of minutes, not the individual minutes themselves.

Headline of the week:
Student Body President candidates against block tuition

Confusing, confusing, confusing. I had to read the headline at least two or three times to grasp what it was trying to convey. 

I would have gone with something else. Like, Unite, Progress can agree on one thing: block tuition.

Students understand there is only two parties, and most everyone apart from the administration is against block tuition, so that doesn't need to be in the headline.

Passage of the week:

"Craig Grant smiles, crooked teeth beneath his white handlebar mustache. He offers a rough hand with dirty nails, nods, looks away. Like he's trying to be personable but it doesn't come easy."This comes from a feature about the Caboodle Ranch in Madison County by Leonora LaPeter Anton of the St. Pete Times. I saw the ranch featured on the Colbert Report and Anton's account provides a greater background that I found compelling.

Guv

Jacksonville Sheriff's Office
Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department

The sheriff's office and police are one in the same. Did you want any other governmental agencies?

Journal 4

Word of the week:
Jingoists. Webster's New World College dictionary defines jingo, the root of jingoist, as a person who boasts of his or her patriotism and favors an aggressive, threatening, warlike foreign policy; chauvinist. Origin: < phr. by jingo in the refrain of a patriotic Brit music-hall song (1878): orig. ? euphemism for Jesus. Merriam-Webster agrees on the origin. In this instance, the writer is using the word to describe the various factions of thought that could arise if/when Egypt becomes democratic.

Catch of the week:
UF professor arrested for credit card fraud

This headline is potentially libelous in my opinion. Arrested for? How about charged with instead? While the writer used proper AP Style in the article, the headline is a large error. 

Headline of the week:

UF ranks second in number of Peace Corps volunteers

Boring. Other than those in the Peace Corps, or who have a relation to it, not many people would care about this story based on the headline. I would change it to:  Social networking connecting UF Peace Corp volunteers. Being an alligator story, the usage of social networking in the headline would lead to more people interested in the story. 

Passage of the week:

Remember when Woods was young, back when he was a skinny college guy who barely filled out his shirt? He was all elasticity, so limber and flexible that watching him play golf was like watching a boy shoot rubber bands.

This passage comes from a Sally Jenkins column in the Washington Post about Tiger Woods. As a golfer and golf fan, I can remember Tiger coming up as an amateur. I watched him win the U.S. Amateur at TPC Sawgrass as a kid, and this passage took me right back to that day.